Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Zwartboek (Black Book)
2006
****½
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn, Waldemar Kobus, Derek de Lint, Christian Berkel, Dolf de Vries, Peter Blok

In 1944, a Jewish woman named Rachel Stein is about to flee the Netherlands, when the Nazis slay her entire family. She stays in the country instead and joins the Resistance, who ask her to go undercover in the SD headquarters in the Hague. Paul Verhoeven's terrific drama puts a fresh twist on the traditional black and white view of World War 2. His characters are multilayered human beings with warts and all. They are all capable of good or evil, whether they are Nazis or Resistance fighters, soldiers or civilians, German or Dutch. The film is long and occasionally trashy, but consistently gripping. Carice van Houten is quite exceptional in the lead. The script by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman is partially based on true events.